Call-out boxes in ArcMap

cmdrico7812

Posted 11 June 2007 - 08:10 AM

cmdrico7812

Key Contributor

Validated Member

68 posts

United States

Hello all,

I am trying to put a map together that reflects some on-site observations made during a site visit. I want to put these observations in call-out boxes over top of an aerial photo in the same style as the map shown in the attached image. Is there a way to do such a thing in ArcMap? I thought about just exporting the aerial photos to PDFs and then adding the call-out boxes, arrows, and other graphics via Photoshop but I wanted to make them geographically accurate by way of ArcMap. Has anyone had any experience doing this or know how it can be done? Thanks in advance!

Caledon_Carto

Posted 26 June 2007 - 02:05 AM

Caledon_Carto

Contributor

Validated Member

10 posts

Gender:Male

Location:Scotland

United Kingdom

Hello all,

I am trying to put a map together that reflects some on-site observations made during a site visit. I want to put these observations in call-out boxes over top of an aerial photo in the same style as the map shown in the attached image. Is there a way to do such a thing in ArcMap? I thought about just exporting the aerial photos to PDFs and then adding the call-out boxes, arrows, and other graphics via Photoshop but I wanted to make them geographically accurate by way of ArcMap. Has anyone had any experience doing this or know how it can be done? Thanks in advance!

Eric

Eric,the best way forward for this kind of thing in ArcMap is to produce an accurate points feature class and then create a linked annotation feature class.This has been used fairly successfully with us. It does work well and mixes the accuracy of the point feature class with the flexibility of Annotation.The only issue fo course is by converting to annotation the feauture is no longer attributed to the database so its best to do it at the finishing stages of any map production. Of course in version 9.2 Representations could help even more.We do all our mapping in ArcMap and don't bother taking it into Illustrator or Freehand for finishing.There is also a developer application worth a visit if you do these things regularly - http://www.geotech.com/envirospase.htmThey do a 'Call-out wizzard'.